I took this picture last Sunday; when I tried to kill my boring rainy afternoon with a cup of coffee at Starbucks. There is a big project to make Singapore full with Hot-Spots; currently it is in BETA testing mode and all you need to do is sign-up with Sing-Tel or StarHub or M1(not sure) the three main Wireless provider ; the back-end services is provided by iCell and Qmax networks.

As Singapore is famous for its shopping center. This picture I took to capture shopping weariness of this guy as he drops on sofa at Starbucks after shopping at Mustafa Centre. It is a shopping paradise open for 24hrs. in Little-India area of Singapore which is very famous among locals as well Indian tourists alike. They even claim at weekend the store is packed with more then 15,000 customers of all nationalities. Well, while his lady partner was quite busy on her mobile phone, it allowed me to take this picture (invasion of sleep if not privacy). Personally, I do always complain about my feet hurting and headache whenever I am in a shopping mall but never dropped yet this way.

Bombay International Airport is always under construction as far as my International travels are concerned. Good news is that it is getting better and the completion date is getting closer. Here, are the pictures for the same as I waited for my flight to Singapore.Though the pictures looks quite world class construction work; but on the ground it may be not …quality wise.

Looking at those plastic chairs brought back my memories of Anandamela (a Bengali children magazine - published fortnight. They used to have picture of common objects in obscure way and you have to identify the same. I know this picture is a far cry from those -any way some sweet memories to reflect upon from fourth floor while taking this picture.

In India celebration is part of life whether big or small ones. But not like west, where you have Christmas as the main one. Here some community celebrates one festival in a BIG way while others something else. You are always between BIG parties of communities. You can not miss them - the reason is very simple … bright choice of colors which catches your attention even if you don’t want which is once again different from west where black and white and sometimes red is primary colour of their clothing.

Similarly, there are some big or small events at work also; not as fancy as of those year-end parties I attended abroad. As Indian economies and companies enjoy the Bull Run these celebrations got few extra feathers on their wings.

These two pictures were taken at PCP, (Peninsula Corporate Park) lower Parel. This used to be a big cotton mill before. Cotton Mills were moved out of Mumbai in 70ties after the long and famous strike by Shakti-Samanth. Now all those mills area are getting converted into posh malls, offices or residential apartments.

If I am not wrong it was party thrown out by Diageo– the big liquor company (Johnny Walker, Smirnoff and other big labels).

While coming to work this morning oxen (castrated male) cart carrying sugar canes caught my attention. It is not a common site to see a bullock cart or hand pulled cart (pulled or pushed by a man) at the heart of Mumbai city next to VT Station.

They are not allowed in the main roads of the city but can only move in the peripheral roads of the city. These kinds of slow moving objects cause most notorious traffic jam in India. But for poor villagers, these are the only way to meet their daily needs and feed few hungry stomachs. Revealing the very true fact of economic and emotional hardship that these low-wage workers face on a day-to-day basis.

Cart is being used for ages and still continues to be an important mode of carrying goods mostly agrarian goods even in this modern age. Although, its popularity has declined considerably but it is very cheap than any other mode of carriage vehicles.

It has many shapes but the basic idea of transporting material remains same. It has usually two or four wheels. This cart is made entirely of bamboos and the wheels are wooden. It is also a very eco-friendly vehicle. Number of men or animal required to push or pull depends on what being hauled.

Cricket – is India’s gorgeous past time – it is not taken as a sport. This picture was taken during Cricket World Cup of 2007 inside a Mumbai cab. But somehow I never posted the same. I am not a big cricket fan but is impossible to avoid cricket while you are in India.

In recent time, performance of Indian cricket team is quite disappointing. But that does not change Indians breathing cricket - be at India or abroad. Performance of India in any other sport is quite dishonorable considering its population.

Cricket and cricketers are most sought after in India. Best Indian performance of cricket in world arena was almost 20 years back when there was not so much glamour and money in that game. May be that is why they were more interested in playing cricket rather than endorsing any brand or product.

The worst of all is the Indian cricket board which is most money milking sport’s body in the world even beating those big football clubs of Europe. Chairs of Indian Cricket Board are filled up with politicians and old cricketers whose greed for money, power and limelight or Page-Three attention never ends. Enough of ranting …..for something which I don’t even care.

After scorching heat, monsoon has arrived in Mumbai. From last two consecutive weeks particularly weekends (June 23-24 & June 30-July 1) there were disruption of normal life due to heavy shower. Thank God, those were weekends otherwise life of 20 million people would have affected some way or other as many schools and offices are closed. We stayed mostly inside and I only ventured out twice to nearby shops to get some grocery done for forthcoming week.

Almost all modes of transports were affected severely; local trains which symbolizes life-line of Mumbai were stopped. People flying in and out of Mumbai also had great difficulties. But with all that Mumbai was back to business on Monday. This city and its people are doing quite normal but as a first timer to the monsoon we are taking things with surprise. Monsoon of Western India are well known to us as we were taught with importance in our Geography classes about them and how they effect the livelihood of farmers of this sub-continent.

These pictures were taken by one of our Support Engineer at Worli. Due to heavy rain there were around 2000 customers of MTNL (State owned Telco) were effected. One out of those 2000 customers was ours (a big fat multinational bank) whose services were compromised for a week. Counterparts sitting in developed countries don’t understand why it takes seven days to get a link fixed during monsoon. Basically, they don’t have idea of what monsoon is?

I am sure people would appreciate this hard effort put by telephone line-men they had to pump out water from the trench before fixing this mess. Red salute to all those people who get Mumbai going through tough time like this.

From this Monday I moved to a corner desk as I put a new pair of shoes at work. The desk is nice but I lost my view from the window. Well, this post is not about my office and work.

Our boss is sailing Far-East and we had a dinner at Marine Plaza Hotel honoring him. The location of the hotel is great and as we were a big group we got a hall to ourself facing Black Bay and Marine-Drive of Mumbai. This windswept promenade is the crown of Mumai’s attraction. If you are in Mumbai try this location for an evening dinner - lots of high end hotel to choose from.

The food was good but not an excellent one; it was a buffet - with many verities of salads, soups and Indian snacks. I hardly had any place for main course after all those but I saved enough for dessert. There were around 10 types of them; and you can see I have taken almost all of them in my plate. I do not recollect any of those fancy names. Chef’s delight was the ultimate one. I was bit skeptical when taking the big white dessert, it had a layer of chocolate in the middle to make it yummier.

Keeping my palm starched and flat on the key-board I confess I have sweet teeth. No big secret, I love [desire will be a better one to express my feeling for them] desserts particularly chocolates. I love dark chocolate but I just can not have enough of them at one go. Unfortunately, I am not getting my daily dose of chocolate as I used to have after dinner in Paris. In Paris, you even get 100% chocolate which comes with warning on the wrapper that you might find taste too strong. Chocolates of main-land Europe particularly from France, Switzerland, and Belgium are the best. Only chocolate I know and like from Italy is Ferro Rocher – well enough of chocolates for this post …but never enough for my tongue.